Litigious Westchester County inmate's latest federal lawsuit is over a chocolate cupcake

Five years after he sued the Westechester County jail to get dental floss, Santiago Gomez is back behind bars in Valhalla, and this time is suing over the food
Wochit

Santiago Gomez, Westchester County's most litigious inmate, has filed yet another federal complaint. This one is over a chocolate cupcake at the county jail.(Photo: Westchester County Department of Correction)

One week after suing the Westchester County jail over the food it serves, the county's most litigious inmate has filed yet another federal lawsuit.

Over a chocolate cupcake.

Santiago Gomez, 31, is seeking no less than $500,000 in damages from Flowers Foods, the Georgia-based company that manufactures Mrs. Freshley's cream-filled chocolate cupcakes.

He said he was "devouring" one of the cupcakes while at the Valhalla jail on Dec. 17, when he bit into a metal foreign object which caused him to "chip and crack his tooth."

Gomez said it caused him "excruciating pain" and left him "in agony."

"As a direct and proximate result of defendant's defective Mrs. Freshley's chocolate cupcakes product, plaintiff was injured/damaged and seeks redress," Gomez said in the the 14-page suit, filed Jan. 17 in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

Paul Baltzer, director of communications for Flowers Foods, did not respond to a telephone call and an email seeking comment.

Photograph of chocolate cupcake that a Westchester inmate said hurt his tooth. He has filed a federal lawsuit over it.(Photo: U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York)

Acting Westchester County Correction Commissioner Justin Pruyne said Wednesday that he could not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit was just the latest filed by Gomez.

In all, he has filed more than a dozen lawsuits for himself or on behalf of other county jail inmates and state prisoners, including a suit filed earlier last month against the Westchester jail and Aramark, its food service provider, over the quality of the jailhouse fare.

In that lawsuit, filed Jan. 10 on behalf of himself and five other inmates, he asked for $925 million each in compensatory and punitive damages, and another $10 million in "special damages" because he said the food served to inmates made him sick.

In September 2012, he sued the jail claiming inmates suffered poor dental health because inmates were not afforded access to dental floss. Although that lawsuit was later dismissed, it prompted jail officials to provide inmate-safe "dental loops."

Gomez has been jailed on several occasions on charges that included assault, weapons possession and witness intimidation, and has served stints in upstate state prisons.

Inmate-safe dental loops were introduced at the Westchester County jail in 2012 after an inmate sued to get dental floss.(Photo: Steven Kayser, AP)

He was released on parole from the Franklin Correctional Facility last year, where he served more than three years in prison for attempted weapon possession. In October, he was rearrested arrested for violating parole, according to court records.

Less than two months after returning to the Westchester jail, he filed the Jan. 10 lawsuit over the quality of the food at the facility. Just seven days later, he filed the new claim against Flowers Foods over their chocolate cupcake.

While he has not cashed in on any of his civil lawsuits, Gomez has become quite prolific at writing them, using legalese that can be hard to distinguish from that of practicing attorneys.

Westchester County jail inmate Santiago Gomez in 2012, when he sued the facility because inmates were denied dental floss.(Photo: Westchester County Department of Correction)

He has also become adept at researching federal statutes and precedent-setting cases, which he cites in many of his complaints.

In his newest over the cupcake, he said that x-rays taken by a dentist on Nov. 27 prove that his tooth was not chipped or damaged prior to eating the snack at the jail.

Gomez said that, because the jail does not provide inmates with root canals or crowns as part of their dental care, he "must suffer in pain until his release."